student. The impression formed by the study of the records of history on the subject of the assassination of Cæsar may well be that Brutus was indeed, as partisans of the French Revolution loved to represent him, a true patriot, who sacrificed his friend to the dictates of his conscience, and would allow no human affection to stand in the way of what he saw to be his duty. But when one has once seen the famous medal of the Ides of March, a medal which bears the effigy of Brutus himself stamped on its surface, one cannot help realising that it was personal spite and envy against Cæsar himself, and not against the monarchical principle, which was the motive which led to the assassination. For in the Roman State to place one's likeness on the public money was precisely to claim, in the most formal manner possible, sovereign power and dominion over all. That was the very point, it will be remembered, of our Saviour's argument, when He bade them bring Him the coin in which the tribute had to be paid, and argued from the head of Tiberius stamped upon it, that it was the duty of a subject to pay to his sovereign the tribute that was levied upon him. The use of money bearing Cæsar's effigy implied the acceptance of Cæsar's authority. No other Roman at the time of Cæsar's assassination, but only the great Julius himself, had ever in his own lifetime seen his own head stamped upon a coin. How then, if Brutus had his own effigy stamped upon the coinage, could he possibly have been a genuine opponent of the principle of kingship and of the concentration of all authority in the hands of a single individual? One feels, as one looks at this most important piece of evidence, that there is something at least to be said for the vehemence of Dante, who, far from extolling Brutus as a lofty patriot, puts him along with Judas Iscariot in the lowest. depths of hell, as one who betrayed his sovereign and did his best, for selfish motives, to ruin and destroy

the country to which he owed allegiance and faithful service.

That Brutus was himself responsible for the issue of the coin, and that it was not merely the rash act of some unwise admirer, is shown by the words of Dion Cassius. "On the coins which he caused to be struck he exhibited a likeness of himself, and a cap and two daggers; intimating by this design and by the legend that, conjointly with Cassius, he had restored his country to liberty." The inscription EID. MAR. declares the fatal day, the Ides of March, on which the bloody deed was done.

These illustrations are taken from secular history, but it would be easy to give others in closer connection with the domain of Christian Archæology. Where could we find, for instance, so convincing a testimony to the Catholic faith and practice of the Christians of Phrygia in the second century as is afforded by the discovery of the Stele of Abercius, to which frequent appeal is made in succeeding chapters. Or, again, how much valuable light is thrown upon the position at Rome and in the Empire after the changes wrought by the Edict of Milan, and upon the character and beliefs of Constantine himself, by a careful study of the coinage issued both at Rome and Constantinople during the twenty-five years of that Emperor's reign. "He was at best only half Pagan, half Christian, who could seek to combine the worship of Christ with the worship of Apollo, having the name of one with the figure of the other impressed upon his coins, and ordaining the observance of Sunday under the name of Dies Solis in his celebrated decree of March, 321." 2 It is easy to exaggerate the force of such evidence, but the least that it can be said to demonstrate is that the Emperor was keenly alive to the value of compromise, 1 Dion Cassius, xlvii. 25. 2 Encycl. Brit. art. Constantine.

and, while by no means indifferent to the vital truths of Christianity, eager to go as far as possible in the direction of propitiating the adherents of the older religion.

These are instances of the help given to the historian by the study of isolated objects of antiquity, like monuments or coins. But it is often the case that conclusions of the greatest importance can be drawn from whole series of facts considered in their mutual bearing on one another. It is often asserted, for instance, that the Christian community of Rome in the age of persecution was neither large nor wealthy. The reader will have grounds laid before him in a later chapter from which he will be able to judge for himself how entirely opposite to the real fact such assertions actually are. But, without going any farther for proof, we can settle the question for ourselves by a mere inspection of a map of the country immediately round the city of Rome. Note the tracks of the ancient roads which ran in every direction from the gates of the city into the surrounding country. Land on the sides of those roads must inevitably, from the advantage of its accessibility, have commanded the highest prices in ancient times. Of all these roads the Via Appia, leading out to the Alban Hills, was by common consent the mistress and the Queen. Land immediately abutting on that great thoroughfare must have been the most costly of all in the neighbourhood of Rome. Yet we find that the cemeteries of the Church, and especially that great burial ground which was the official property of the Church as such, the Cemetery of St. Callixtus, were constructed under the very best of the land which occupied this specially favoured position. Since these Catacombs are wholly excavated under the surface of land which was private property, so much so that to this day we can trace out the boundaries of the various properties by simply

noting where the galleries come to an end, it follows necessarily that vast quantities of this most valuable land was in the hands of Christian owners. No poverty-stricken body of uneducated slaves, such as some are fond of imagining the early Roman Christians to have been, could possibly have owned land in such a district, or, owning it, would have dedicated it to a use which, by taking away the possibility of selling it, inevitably destroyed its value in the open market. The hills on the right and the left of this great thoroughfare, right up to the second milestone, with the exception only of a few limited strips, are all honeycombed beneath with galleries and given over to the final disposition of the bodies of the faithful. When we reflect on the enormous value of landed property in a district so much sought after, does it not open out before us a new and unexpected vision of the power and the riches of the Christian community even before the persecutions came to an end ?

If we turn to the Via Salaria, another road of almost equal importance, the case is even more striking. A fairly large district along the Via Appia lies low and is unsuitable for the purposes of burial in Catacombs. But the Via Salaria runs almost wholly on high ground, and here the whole soil is undermined by Christian galleries. The Christians, then, even before Constantine, were in possession of the best lands near Rome, on the borders of the main roads which gave access to the city. Wherever we turn we find the same story. The whole city seems to have been surrounded with similar hypogea, the last resting-places of primitive Christians. So vast a property in land in the most favoured spots in close proximity to the city, can scarcely have any other meaning than that all Rome was surrounded by Christian estates, covered, no doubt, with splendid villas and beautiful gardens, the property of the noble classes of Roman citizens.

We begin to understand that had not Christianity been a religion which preached humility and inculcated submission to existing powers, Christians might have possessed themselves of supreme authority in the city a long while before the Edict of Milan. The peace of Constantine was not so much an unexpected boon, as a necessity forced on by the political needs of the moment. No other choice was possible at the beginning of the fourth century except that between civil war if Christianity was to be destroyed, and the attainment of peace by permitting to Christians a legal and unmolested existence. Even if Constantine had not been drawn to the latter alternative by his sincere admiration for Christians and his belief in the religion they professed, he would have been driven sooner or later to grant the boon because of the numbers and importance to which the Christians had attained in the very capital of the Empire, and of the world. And all this we should know for certain, even if every historical document of the period had perished, from the mere study of the extent and position of the Catacombs which encircle Rome.

The field of research which is open to a student of Archæology, since it includes the whole study of the remains of past ages, is so vast that he will be well advised, if he desires to attain to any kind of eminence, to limit himself strictly to a single branch. Even Christian Archæology, strictly so-called, is too extended a study to allow of any detailed knowledge of all its many sub-divisions by any one who is unable to give up his whole life to this single object. Even here some definite limits must be placed by most students to the extent of their interests and their aims. It is better, for instance, to be a real authority on numismatics or on palæography than to try to cover a much wider field with less accuracy and real knowledge. Such studies as those of Mgr. Wilpert